At 2017 Grammys, Beyonce, Chance the Rapper, and A Tribe Called Quest Bring Heavy Dose of Religion

From the imagery of the divine mother in Beyonce’s performance to Busta Rhymes’s jab at President Trump’s “Muslim ban,” religion took center stage at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

It’s been featured before at the awards ceremony — in gospel hymns, a mock exorcism, even a real mass marriage ceremony — but Tripp Hudgins, a doctoral student in liturgical studies and ethnomusicology at the Graduate Theological Union, noted, “What makes the religious impulse so evident this year is that this year it’s reflecting the countercultural.”

It’s an obviously pregnant Beyonce giving “a history of black diaspora right there on stage,” rather than a “bubble-gum pop group” thanking Jesus, Hudgins said.

Indeed, it was mainly black artists who turned the spotlight on religion Sunday (Feb. 12) at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles, said the Rev. Broderick Greer of Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and School in Memphis, Tenn.

“They don’t see the secular and the sacred as being two different things. This is an animated universe with spirits and life and diversity and lots of modes of giftedness that are happening all at once, and it’s not either-or; it’s both-and,” Greer said.

The appearance of religious themes began with Chance the Rapper accepting the first award — for best new artist.

“Glory be to God. I claim this victory in the name of the Lord,” said the artist, who won three Grammys total, including best rap album and rap performance.

Later, he exuberantly performed his songs “How Great” — featuring the chorus of Christian artist Chris Tomlin’s “How Great Is Our God” — and “All We Got” with Kirk Franklin, Tamela Mann and a white-robed gospel choir.

A Tribe Called Quest and Anderson Paak break down a wall during their performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS)

A Tribe Called Quest mixed religion with politics in their performance of “We the People,” joined onstage by Anderson .Paak, Consequence and Busta Rhymes. Rhymes thanked President Trump for his “unsuccessful attempt at the Muslim ban” as performers, including a woman in a hijab, knocked down a wall constructed onstage.

Tribe members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad both are Muslim, Slate noted.

But perhaps the performance richest in religious imagery was Beyonce’s, which evoked iconography of the divine feminine from several faith traditions.

During the performance, special effects made it appear she had many arms, mimicking Kali, a Hindu goddess who has been worshipped as the Divine Mother and Mother of the Universe.

Observers on social media noted references to the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Venus, and Mami Wata, or Yemoja, the Yoruba patron deity of women, especially pregnant women.

The golden, halolike crown, ornamented with roses, and the veil Beyonce wore also evoked icons of the Virgin Mary, including depictions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, in Catholicism.

And the Rev. Wil Gafney, associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School, said her visibly pregnant appearance was a rejection of the church’s historically uneasy relationship with sex and the body, and particularly black female bodies. The singer also evoked Mary in the Protestant tradition, who, after giving birth to Jesus, “continues to live as a human woman with hurts and hopes, fully sexually active, alive to her body, other pregnancies.”

After preaching the Gospel every day for 367 days straight throughout the 2016 presidential campaign season, Daniel Whyte III is preaching the Gospel for 1,000 days during the Trump presidency. If you think a new president being in office is the only thing needed to save America and 'make America great again,' you are woefully deceived. The church must follow through and "keep the main thing the main thing: and that is reaching unbelievers with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and praying for their salvation, for the problem in America is not only disobedient presidents, politicians, and people, but disobedient pastors, preachers, and parishioners who have refused to obey the Lord's Great Commission which is to, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' and who have refused to obey God's repeated commands to 'pray without ceasing' for unbelievers, believers, and political leaders." So, we encourage you to pray for the new president, but not to get caught up in the political happenings like the world does. Nothing much is going to change until people get saved and get their hearts right with the Lord. And that is what this campaign is all about.

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